Wednesday, April 23, 2014

12 Years a Slave is a Masterful Portrayal of the Human Experience

To try and put the emotional response evoked from a film
like 12 Years a Slave into words is
impossible. The film transcends modern
cinema in a way I’ve never seen to the point of being an instant classic; and
an adaptation which will go down as one of the absolute best in the history of
film making. The film takes its name and
events from the journal of Solomon Northrup, published as his memoir in 1853. It follows Solomon’s harrowing descent from
New York high society where he lives in a comfortable and many would say
luxurious home with his wife and two children, to the confines of American
slavery in the deep South. Swindled by
two con men, Solomon is captured, imprisoned, and secretly smuggled to Georgia
where he is sold into the darkest institution this country’s history has ever
had to come to terms with. Solomon
spends the next 12 years biding his time and surviving as best he can. During that time he lives on three different
plantations under three very different masters which not only represents the
varied opinions and personalities of the white men in control, but also the
distinctly different experiences of the slaves in their possession. Survival is not what Solomon wants
though. He famously says “I do not want
to survive, I want to live”. This
statement is made all the more profound by the fact that Solomon was a free
man. He was not born into slavery, he
did not escape its confines; he was born and lived as a free man before that
freedom, which many human beings take for granted, was stripped from him in the
most vile and aggressive way possible.
In this way, the film forces the viewer to reflect on not only their
own freedom, but also the fact that for over 200 years we not only denied that right
to fellow human beings but took it a savage step further. The violence in the film is prevelant, aggressively
accurate, and completely necessary. The
pain and suffering endured by not only Solomon but the many slaves he
encounters during his time in captivity reveals the unrelenting brutality and
systematic dehumanization of an entire group of people. Trust and hope are the only two things
Solomon has left and in the end, it will be a combination of the two that saves
him. The film unquestionably deserved
the Academy Award for Best Picture and director Steve McQueen has no doubt
created a masterpiece. Superb acting by Chiwetel
Ejiofor, Michael Fastbender, Lupita Nyong'o, Paul Giamatti, Benedict Cumberbatch,
and Brad Pitt make the film an acting powerhouse. In the end, the viewer is forced to
contemplate the experience of all involved in the institution of slavery as you
ponder how so many people could turn a blind eye to such insatiable human
suffering.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Welcome

A DFL blog devoted to music, movies, and television. Don't miss your favorites — new, old, and yet to be discovered — at the Library today.

Duxbury Free Library

More than just books...

Newsletter

About

Larissa is the Teen Librarian at the DFL. She has a BA in English Lit from Smith College and an MS in Library and Information Science from Drexel University. She owns a production company with her boyfriend, and together they create film and print works. Larissa is a little obsessed with feminism, the moon, and pizza.